Date of Award

Spring 1984

Degree Type

Major Paper

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Marine Affairs

Abstract

The United States Arctic, for the purposes of this study, encompasses the seabed and subsoil under the resource jurisdiction of the United States, including the Bering Sea offshore, and the Hope Basin, Chukchi (Barrow Arch) and Beaufort (Diapir Field) Seas, and land territory north of the Brooks Range onshore. Although U.S. credibility with its Arctic allies would be enhanced by its becoming a party to the Law of the Sea Convention, this remote possibility is not a prerequisite for a successful U.S. Arctic Policy. It is more important that U.S. policy goals are perceived among its Arctic allies as being unselfish. The present U.S. Arctic policy of benign neglect under the guise of allowing the free market to operation unimpeded by government intervention is clearly unacceptable if the united States is to regain its status in the Arctic region. Cooperation between government, science, and industry, coupled with a realistic foreign policy which dispenses with the delusion that the Arctic is unimportant, and altruistic in its recognition of the policies of the other littoral states, will establish U.S. technological superiority in the Arctic region.

Download
COinS